


disconnect to keep the heart safe

by n_eptune



Category: Produce 101 (TV), X1 (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dom Seungyoun, Everyone loves wooseok, Feelings Realization, Friends to Lovers, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Roommates, Slow Burn, and shit happens, first of all im gay and idk what all to tag this as, seungwoo is wooseok's designated emotional support bestie, seungyoun calls wooseok baby, sub wooseok, they are fucking stupid, wooseok is secretly in love w his best friend
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2020-12-09 08:41:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20991959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/n_eptune/pseuds/n_eptune
Summary: “you’ve been avoiding me,” seungyoun’s accusation cuts through the silence, the tone of his voice much darker than the playful sort it had taken on before.“i-” wooseok is a terrible liar. the worst, probably. “i haven’t.”a uni au where wooseok is in love with his roommate and best friend seungyoun and they make a big mistake.





	1. love is (not) easy

a sudden knock on the door startles wooseok from his hunched over position at his desk, pen falling from his fingers as he turns in the direction of the sound with narrowed eyes.

his brows furrow in confusion, and a glance across the room to the clock on his bedside table confirms that, no, he _hadn't_ been expecting company, yet there was someone on the other side of his door at eleven at night anyway.

essay temporarily forgotten, he stands from the chair and stretches a bit, a sigh falling from his parted lips and joints popping after having been in the same position for so long.

it's not that it isn't a common occurrence for someone to show up at his dorm so late, but more often than not it was seungyoun, who didn't bother to stumble on home until around two in the morning when he's had his fill of alcohol for the night, but even then he never knocked. he simply walked (drunken and dazedly, anyway) right in like he owned the place.

which, _well_. in seungyoun’s defence, that's partly true. 

seungyoun and wooseok share the dorm, their first meet at the very same doorstep that wooseok was currently apprehensively approaching what seems like ages ago, but it was merely a number of months.

from there, they'd fallen into easy conversation and soon found that they had quite a lot in common.

they're both juniors, although seungyoun is a few months older than wooseok, which he often teases him over (seungwoo, one of their close friends, scolds him and compares them to twins fighting over who was older by mere _minutes_, but he’s always scolding them over one thing or another so he hardly pays attention to it anymore). 

they’d both despised chemistry in school, fried chicken is their favorite dish, both grew up as only children, and share a love of music that led them to choose music as their majors when coming to the university.

however, they eventually came to realize that they had a few more differences than they originally thought.

wooseok was messy, never bothering to clean up after himself, and seungyoun was an _absolute_ clean freak who was more than happy to tidy everything up. wooseok would rather have a night in with k-drama marathons while the other boy preferred to be out in a crowd of sweaty bodies, drinking his heart out.

seungyoun was outgoing, and far too sweet for his own good, honestly— wooseok was convinced that his roommate could _actually_ befriend anything and everything in his path.

meanwhile, wooseok was the opposite, staying to himself and mostly focusing on his studies instead of venturing out of his comfort zone to speak to others so that he could _make some friends_ like his mother always pressured him into doing. she never understood his introverted nature, being an extrovert herself.

while seungyoun has more friends than he knows what to do with, wooseok doesn't care to have or make any other than the few he has. which, admittedly, he can count on one hand.

which is why wooseok is so perplexed by the knock on his door so late into the night. silently cursing the dorms for not having peepholes, he's only slightly surprised to come face to face with kim yohan on the other side of his door after he's swung it open.

his friend appears to have gotten ready before heading over, if his impeccable appearance complete with a deep v-neck tee and a leather jacket is anything to go by.

he suddenly feels self conscious, which honestly isn’t uncommon when he finds himself in yohan’s company, and significantly underdressed in his white jumper (that he's realizing might just be seungyoun’s since it's nearly falling off of his shoulder that he’s standing) and grey sweatpants.

wooseok is the first to speak. “...oh. yohan, what’re you doing here so late?”

an attractive grin spreads across yohan’s face as he leans against the door frame, replying in an instant. “he's alive! tried calling a couple of times, but you didn't pick up, so i thought i'd just head on over. i'm here to save you from homework and essays and all of that nonsense. youn is already with hangyul so i knew you were here by yourself. come have fun with us, hyung!”

_ah_. he should’ve expected as much, that yohan would come over so late on a friday night to drag him out to some party.

yohan and the rest of his friends often remind him of his mother at times, constantly telling him whenever parties or gatherings would be and giving him the same ‘you need to get out more often’ speech when he’d turn them down.

wooseok rarely ever goes out, unless it’s to his classes, to spend time with his close friends, or to eat if seungyoun isn't present to call and order take-out for them.

absentmindedly tugging at the sleeve of his jumper, he shakes his head and refuses to let his cheeks tint. wooseok hates having to let him down, and he feels enough disappointment in himself and his answer for the both of them, unable to meet his eyes. “i... have a paper due on monday that i’m not finished with.”

he feels the disappointment pang harder in his chest at yohan’s defeated sigh. “i’m sorry, yohan, you know how i am. i'd be miserable at whatever party you drag me to.”

“well, hangyul said it was worth a try. listen, call or text us whenever if you change your mind and want us to pick you up, yeah? or... if you want to know the address.” while he knows it isn’t likely for either instance to happen, wooseok nods regardless to make yohan happy and give him even the slightest bit of hope that it might, since he knows that yohan worries about him.

upon seeing his nod, yohan gives him another smile and leans in to wrap his arms around him. wooseok immediately sinks into the embrace, feeling grateful that he and hangyul had even thought of him. he really doesn’t deserve them.

“love you, yohanie,” he mumbles into his shoulder a few moments before they both pull away, the other boy's smile having brightened considerably at the show of affection.

“love you too, hyung. tell seungyoun i said hi when he gets back for me?”

wooseok nods once again, giving him a small smile and a wave of his hand before watching his retreating form.

turning on his heels, he closes the door behind him and makes his way back to his desk to continue with the essay that the untimely knock on the door had taken him away from.

  


* * *

  


wooseok isn't sure when he had fallen asleep, but he feels like something is definitely _off_ as he lifts his head from where it had drooped onto his partially finished essay in his exhaustion.

he can’t be sure of what exactly is off to him, though; it could have been that he can’t remember a time when he’d been so exhausted that he couldn't have at least gotten himself to bed before knocking out, or that the doorknob is now jiggling furiously.

the latter makes him jump out of his seat with a truly embarrassing squeak that he tries to conceal with his hands as they fly up to cover his mouth, mentally slapping himself for not remembering to lock the door after seungyoun left. 

oh, god. he's going to die. he didn't even get the chance to finish his essay.

it's only when the door begins to swing open that he realizes he hasn't even bothered to grab anything to defend himself against the intruder with.

in his haste, he snatches the pink furry lamp (that he'd gotten as a _hilarious_ ‘house-warming gift’ from his friend back home which seungyoun had downright refused to let him throw away after laughing over it for five minutes straight) from the desk, holding it out in front of him, ready to swing.

“seok?” warmth and relief settles in his bones at the sound of seungyoun’s voice, and he lowers the lamp in his hands. he can’t help the nervous chuckle that comes from him as he moves one of his hands to rest over his still racing heart.

"jesus, seungyoun, you can't just.. what were you being so _loud_ for? you made me think you were some serial killer or something. i could’ve hurt you!" he exclaims, placing the lamp back where it belongs and then straightening out his glasses.

seungyoun snorts in amusement, closing the door behind him and leaning back against it. "you wouldn't have killed me with a pink furry lamp, seokie." for someone who’s most likely had far too much to drink, seungyoun’s words are only barely slurred and he can surprisingly actually form full sentences.

wooseok has seen him drunk more times than he can count, but never after he’d come home from a party unless it had been when he’d attended it with him. he was usually sleeping when seungyoun stumbled home, left to wake up to a heavy weight in his bed and an arm slung over his waist... in the case that he hadn't found someone to go home with, wooseok thinks bitterly.

“i could’ve. i’m totally capable of using household items as weapons,” wooseok attempts to banter, hoping seungyoun is too smashed to notice that his smile is obviously forced.

wooseok’s crush on seungyoun is something he can usually hone in. he’s never been too obvious about it, or at least he hasn't thought so, until about a week ago when seungwoo had invited him over and confronted him about it.

_"wooseok, you don't know how much it kills me to see your face whenever we’re for lunch and the other boys go on about girls and guys hanging off of seungyoun at some party. i just think you need to distance yourself, maybe go out and find someone else.”_

_wooseok couldn’t speak, face in his hands, mortified that seungwoo saw right through him when he thought he was being subtle about it all._

_“i have a few friends that i could set you up with... there's always jinhyuk that you've met a few times, whenever we went out for drinks. he’s clearly into you. look, i don't know, okay? all i know is that i’m tired of seungyoun being oblivious to your feelings and hurting you without even knowing."_

wooseok had been quick to come to seungyoun’s defense, of course. seungyoun didn't know, is all; he was out having fun, who was wooseok to ruin that by letting him in on his pathetic crush?

he followed seungwoo’s advice in the end. over the past week, wooseok has managed to avoid being alone with his roommate and they'd rarely spoken outside of the occasional text.

when they _were_ together and out with their group of friends, wooseok stuck close to yohan, who hadn't quite understood why wooseok was suddenly cuddling up to him instead of his dorm mate, but didn't turn away from his affections either.

it killed him. wooseok felt absolutely gutted every time he looked over at seungyoun and saw his intense stare caught on where his head was resting on yohan’s shoulder, where their arms were linked together, or wherever they were to be touching, because that was always how _they_ were.

and out of the blue, wooseok had switched over to yohan for, seemingly to seungyoun, no reason at all.

now, he can feel that same intense gaze, locked on his every move. he can practically _feel_ the frustration on seungyoun’s end.

“..seungyoun?” he asks tentatively whenever he realizes he'd never gotten a response, a long pause following it.

“you’ve been avoiding me,” seungyoun’s accusation cuts through the silence, the tone of his voice much darker than the playful sort it had taken on before.

“i-” wooseok is a terrible liar. the worst, probably. “i haven’t.”

seungyoun takes a step forward, and wooseok simultaneously steps back. they continue their little game until his back hits the wall, with seungyoun looming over him, the mere three inch difference in their height seemingly elongated.

he feels trapped, bracketed in by seungyoun’s hands against the wall on either side of his head.

“don’t lie to me, wooseok. every time we're here alone, you've got some paper to ignore me for or you're leaving to go to a class or hang out with someone. whenever we're out with the boys, you're basically, like, fucking hanging off of yohan’s arm. you never want to spend time with me anymore. if you're... if you’re just, y’know, getting tired of me, you could've just said so."

it’s as if there are fingers wrapped around wooseok’s throat, cutting off his oxygen and making him dizzy, his thoughts and feelings a foggy blur of disbelief and dread. his best friend is going to kick him out or something equally as terrible, he's sure of it.

“seungyoun, just-”

“i don’t want to hear it.”

seungyoun is going to hate him forever, and all because he can't keep his feelings in check.

he makes a mental note to never listen to han seungwoo ever again in his entire life.

wooseok’s breath catches in his throat as he glances up to meet seungyoun’s gaze, glazed over and swimming with emotions that he can’t seem to decipher.

he almost thinks that he imagines seungyoun’s eyes flickering down to his lips, but not a moment later there are lips pressed against his own and he _knows_ that he can’t possibly be imagining that.

wooseok’s brain short-circuits and keeps him from automatically responding, shell-shocked that seungyoun is _actually_ kissing him. willingly, albeit drunkenly, kissing him.

it’s only when he feels teeth nipping at his bottom lip that his hands fly desperately to the nape of seungyoun’s neck, rising to his toes so he can kiss him more thoroughly.

that seems to please seungyoun, his hands moving from the wall to grip wooseok’s hips, pulling him flush against his body. when wooseok gasps at the action, he takes the opportunity to let his tongue slip past his lips to run along wooseok’s own.

wooseok is unable to help the involuntary shiver that runs through his spine at that, seungyoun’s mouth swallowing his whimper as they lose themselves in the kiss.

the taste of seungyoun is unfortunately dulled significantly by the alcohol he can taste on his tongue, but that doesn’t stop wooseok from wanting more, wanting anything he can get after hopelessly pining for months.

there is a dull ache in his lungs where he's severely lacking oxygen, but all he can focus on are seungyoun’s lips on his own, seungyoun’s hands on his hips, seungyoun’s body pressed against his, seungyoun’s _entire being_ engulfing his senses and thoughts.

all too soon, he's pulling away with a gasp of air, lips tingling and mind reeling.

“seungyoun,” he breathes out, “you’re drunk.”

his eyelids are still clenched shut because he’s terrified that if he opens his eyes, he’ll have to raise his head from his desk and it will all have been a dream conjured up by his pathetic mind to please his equally as pathetic heart, if only for a bit. 

except.

except, seungyoun’s hands are slipping past the hem of his jumper then, his fingers pressing almost harshly into the bare skin there as his lips leave sloppy kisses along his jaw.

wooseok can’t even hear their labored breathing that just barely fills the otherwise silent room over his heart beating uncontrollably in his chest, pounding against his ribs and blaring in his ears so loudly that he's absolutely positive seungyoun will be able to hear.

“m’not,” wooseok manages to catch, feeling seungyoun’s lips form the words against his skin, “didn’t have much to drink.”

seungyoun then rolls his hips into wooseok’s, a high-pitched moan leaving his own lips that make his cheeks burn while causing a low groan to leave the other boy's.

one of seungyoun’s knees push his legs apart, meeting little to no resistance from him that he should probably be ashamed of (who just allows their best friend to kiss and grind up on them while they're clearly tipsy?! the answer is wooseok, who's been dreaming of this moment for as long as he could remember, that's who) but just can’t really find it in himself to care.

the lips that were on his only moments ago begin making their way along his jaw and down to his neck, and wooseok’s head falls back against the wall behind him to give him more room to do as he pleases.

seungyoun’s knee is pressed against his clothed cock, and when he involuntarily shifts his hips at the feeling of teeth scraping against the skin of his neck, a wonton moan falls from his lips at the friction.

only, when he attempts to do it again, seungyoun’s knee is gone and he can’t help but whimper at the loss.

"tell me you want me."

tere’s a sharp intake of breath when wooseok actually comprehends the words whispered in his ear over his own racing thoughts, and then again as he feels the lips at his neck once more.

"seungyoun," he whines impatiently, repeating it a moment later with more urgency when teeth nip at his adam’s apple.

“c’mon, seokie,” seungyoun can feel his lips curved into what he can tell is a smirk by his voice against the skin of his neck, the bastard. “tell me you want me.”

“yes. yes, i want you, _please_,” wooseok caves, pleading, praying to whatever god that might be listening that he doesn’t sound as needy and pathetic as he feels for admitting it.

he hears a groan that sounds even more desperate than his own, and seungyoun’s hands lower to take hold of wooseok upper thighs from behind to hoist him up off of the ground, wooseok’s legs immediately wrapping around him as a result.

soon, wooseok’s back hits one of the mattresses, seungyoun settling in between his legs as their lips meet again.

his thoughts are a mix of disbelief and desire whenever seungyoun pulls away with his hands tugging at the hem of wooseok’s jumper, shivering underneath him once it's finally off and tossed aside.

there are obvious signs that seungyoun is a bit intoxicated within his movements, whenever he struggles a bit with taking his shirt off and giggles at how hard it is to peel off his _insanely_ tight skinny jeans, even with wooseok’s help.

he seems to want it just as much as wooseok, if his breathy murmurs of “_so fucking hot, seok,_” and “_wanna fuck you so bad_” against his neck after all of their clothes have finally been removed are any indication.

seungyoun pulls back to lean over the bed, and wooseok takes the opportunity to press his lips against seungyoun’s chest, mouthing over his collarbone and swirling his tongue around one of his nipples, which cause a string of curses to come from him.

he’s got a bottle of lube and a condom in hand whenever he sits up fully from where he'd been halfway over wooseok to reach the bedside drawer, and the boy underneath him exhales shakily in his nervousness and excitement at the fact that what he thought had only been an unattainable dream is _actually_ happening.

sure, a talk beforehand where they both actually confess their feelings and a date beforehand would’ve been nice, but… wooseok will take what he can get.

it takes seungyoun a short while to get his fingers slicked up after dropping the bottle onto the sheets once or twice in his haste, but once he puts the cap down and tosses it aside, he’s finally pressing the tip of his index finger against wooseok’s hole as he connects their lips in a filthy kiss to distract him from it sliding in.

the stretch isn’t exactly foreign to him, he’s done the same to himself a time or twenty imagining their current situation, and wooseok squirms against the sheets as he whimpers into seungyoun’s mouth whenever he pauses for a few moments once his finger is knuckle deep.

"seungyoun..." he pants against his lips, shifting his hips once more to signal for him to at least do _something_.

fulfilling his wordless request, seungyoun captures wooseok’s bottom lip between his teeth and momentarily tugs at it as he begins to move his finger in an out at a steady pace. after a minute or so wooseok is begging for another, and seungyoun complies without complaint, slowly but surely pushing another slick finger inside of him.

seungyoun is taking his sweet time, and as much as wooseok loves it, he might just go insane.

it isn’t until after he's gotten three fingers inside of him that seungyoun is needily grinding down against them, whining and pleading for him to just get inside of him already.

seungyoun barely hears him, too busy dragging his tongue and teeth along the dip of wooseok’s collarbone and curling his fingers in a way that makes him shudder and choke on a gasped breath, but he seems to get the message when wooseok’s fingernails claw down seungyoun’s back and make him hiss.

whenever that finally convinces him to pull back and seungyoun’s fingers slip from out of him, wooseok is feeling around for the condom and _trying_ to focus on the task at hand instead of the insistent mouth sucking at one of his nipples.

everything goes a little hazy whenever he feels seungyoun’s knuckles brushing against his belly and there are vibrations against wooseok’s chest with his moan, realizing that seungyoun is touching himself above him.

it has wooseok redoubling his efforts to find the condom despite the distractions, ripping open the packet himself when he finally finds it and reaching down between them to take seungyoun’s hand away from his cock.

thankfully, seungyoun doesn't complain, just bucks his hips into the new hand circling around his length and moans loudly around the younger boy's now reddened nipple, momentarily making wooseok forget his own name.

once he's gotten the condom onto seungyoun’s cock, wooseok raises his hands to push his fingers into sweat dampened hair so he can tug at the strands, pulling seungyoun’s head back to get his attention.

the action has seungyoun groaning and his dick twitches where it's lying against wooseok’s, grinding down against him as their lips meet in a dirty kiss that barely drowns out the noise of their bodies moving together in desperation and the moans rolling off of their own tongues and onto each other's.

wooseok gets desperate enough eventually, pulling away from the kiss with his teeth tugging harshly at seungyoun’s bottom lip and takes note of the gritty moan that he gets in response.

"please," he murmurs into the nearly nonexistent space between their lips, seungyoun leaning down for another lingering kiss that stops him from continuing his pleading from whenever his fingers had still been inside of him.

the moment the kiss is broken, seungyoun is rising onto his knees to glance around for the lube he'd tossed before and coats himself generously once he's found it.

wooseok’s mouth waters at the sight of seungyoun touching himself, and he trails his fingers along the 'v' of seungyoun’s hips, which causes him to let out a breathless curse and squeeze the base of his cock.

he glances up to see dark eyes boring into him, as if seungyoun had been staring at his face the entire time he was stroking himself, and wooseok can't breathe with the intensity he almost feels that he shouldn't be seeing in those glassy eyes.

wooseok is about to speak again, but as soon as he opens his mouth, all that comes out is a gasp as he feels the head of seungyoun’s cock pressing against his hole.

his hands scramble for something to hold on to, and he ends up digging his fingernails into seungyoun’s upper arms whenever he bends down to kiss him again.

wooseok can feel every single inch sinking into him painstakingly slowly, and at that point he isn't even kissing back, just panting and whining into seungyoun’s mouth until his hips still where they meet wooseok’s own.

wooseok busies himself with burying his fingers in seungyoun’s hair yet again and arching his neck up to kiss him, their lips moving together in a way that makes wooseok consider giving up oxygen forever to never have to pull away.

only he finds himself breaking away not even a moment later when seungyoun nearly pulls all of the way out just to thrust right back in, a moan ripping from wooseok’s throat that intertwines with the groan coming from seungyoun.

seungyoun continues fucking him just like that for a minute or so, not even pausing to allow either of them to breathe between his hard thrusts, and wooseok’s eyes can't stay open no matter how hard he tries.

they both pant harshly into the hot air whenever seungyoun’s hips pause, his cock completely buried inside of wooseok, and wooseok whines into his mouth when seungyoun just about growls and his hips buck forward at the way the smaller boy’s fingers tug at his hair to get him to move again.

seungyoun moves back onto his knees again, his hands gripping at wooseok’s hips to still him as he tries to squirm in another attempt to have him moving inside of him like before, giggling a bit when he notices wooseok pouting up at him.

wooseok almost thinks he imagines seungyoun muttering _‘god, you’re so pretty’_.

it seems like he finally takes pity on wooseok then, because seungyoun tightens the grip on his hips and, instead of pulling out like wooseok thought, pulls him back against him so that he can circle and grind his hips filthily. wooseok’s head falls back as he moans and he writhes on the sheets as best he can with the grip holding him down, fingers clawing at the sheets.

"fuck me, fuck, stop _teasing_, please," wooseok manages to gasp out, wondering how seungyoun even has enough of a sound mind to be able to tease him the way he is.

seungyoun’s eyes bore into him, and wooseok feels all of the breath leave his lungs when he hears again what he thought he imagined not long before.

“you’re so pretty.”

finally he relents and pulls his cock half way out, only to use his grip on wooseok’s hips to make him meet his thrust as he fucks back into him. seungyoun keeps himself deep and his thrusts short, fucking wooseok well enough to have his back arching off of the bed and his nails scratching down his chest.

"so fucking gorgeous, seok, god, you're so pretty like this," seungyoun babbles absentmindedly between his grunts and groans, and wooseok can only squeeze his eyes shut and let out sobbing moans, his cheeks already too flushed to be blushing at the words he's hearing.

"oh, fuck," wooseok chokes out as seungyoun changes the angle whenever he lays his body down on top of wooseok’s, gasping at the friction against his cock where it’s now pressed in between their sweat slick abdomens..

they’re so close, so close. it’s like seungyoun can’t get close enough to wooseok.

the drag of seungyoun’s cock inside of him paired with the friction against his own, not to mention the way that wooseok can hear his own name moaned into his mouth as they kiss, have him close to falling over the edge.

"i’m.. seungyoun, _please_, seungyoun-" wooseok chokes out, teary eyed, and seungyoun seems to know what he wants.

“so pretty, you’re so pretty, baby,” seungyoun repeats, hot breath over wooseok’s ear and teeth scraping over the lobe. the petname makes wooseok whimper.

one hand is gone from wooseok’s hips and before he can fathom what seungyoun’s got in mind for him, he’s fisting a handful of hair and pulling wooseok’s head back. when his eyes open he’s met with seungyoun’s gaze, heavy lidded but focused on his own.

from then on, everything is heightened and wooseok can't even manage to gasp out a warning before he's coming, fingers digging into seungyoun’s arms as his thighs shake and his body shudders through his climax.

he barely registers seungyoun letting out a string of curses above him as his hips halt and his cock twitches inside of him, but he does hear the groan of his name as warmth fills him from the come inside of the condom.

an unintelligible noise is muffled against seungyoun’s shoulder whenever he sags against wooseok, his entire weight resting on top of him. wooseok huffs out a little, breathless laugh, and pushes him to the side, noting that seungyoun’s practically a dead weight at that point.

wooseok uses the leg of seungyoun’s pants that are still hanging off of the edge of the bed to wipe them off, brushing off seungyoun’s hand that keep trying to grab him and pull him in, and ignoring his mumbles of '_beautiful sleep_' (he's pretty sure that he means beauty sleep) and '_cuddles_'.

he can only ignore him for so long, though, so after disposing of the condom, wooseok is quick to crawl back into bed and fall asleep with seungyoun in a tangle of limbs.

  


* * *

  


on any other day, wooseok would fight consciousness as much as he can until he absolutely can’t anymore, or at _least_ until he knows that he has to get up to get ready for a class, but once the memories of the night before come flooding back into his mind he knows that it certainly is _not_ just any other day.

there’s an arm wrapped around his bare waist, and while he's always known that seungyoun loves cuddling up to him whenever they sleep in the same bed, it's much different to wake up to it _now_, since they are both _very much_ naked.

in his attempts to scramble out of bed, he finds himself hissing in pain, and… he honestly should have been expecting that. it’s not as if he’s accustomed to the feeling, it’s been a while since he’s gotten laid, and it certainly isn’t easy to ignore as he stands from seungyoun’s bed to pick up the discarded clothes from last night.

(bending down is especially uncomfortable).

pulling the jumper over his frame and putting on a pair of pants from their dresser so he won’t be completely naked underneath, he dares to chance a glance over to the boy on the bed once he's got his glasses on.

wooseok is pretty sure that he can see drool coming from the corner of seungyoun’s mouth onto the pillow underneath his head, but… he’s always found that bad habit of his oddly cute, and wouldn’t mind waking up to that admittedly gross display every morning.

god, he’s so _disgustingly_ in love.

the urge to get back into bed with him is overwhelmingly tempting, but he decides against it after a few moments of contemplating, and instead ends up heading out to the dorm hall’s communal kitchen in the end.

thankfully, since it’s a saturday morning and most students are hungover in their respective rooms, the halls, common room, and kitchen area are completely silent and empty as he passes through.

not too long after, wooseok is retreating back to their dorm and to sit on the spot on the bed he had left empty whenever he’s finished making their morning tea after placing seungyoun’s down on the bedside table, biting down on his bottom lip as he looks at the still unconscious boy lying beside him.

he can’t seem to stop his thoughts from racing, wondering what in the world he's going to even say to seungyoun once he's awake.

he isn’t left alone with his thoughts for long, terrifyingly enough, because minutes later a muffled groan reaches his ears, signaling that the other boy is finally awake.

wooseok hadn’t even gotten past what he would say after ‘good morning’, except he isn’t even sure if he should say that anyway, since seungyoun would most likely wake with a headache, so how could it even be considered a _good_ morning?

wooseok stays silent, his hands cupped tightly around the mug he attempts to keep still and upright as seungyoun shuffles around on the bed.

when yet another groan comes from the more than likely hungover seungyoun, wooseok can’t hold back the slight chuckle that escapes him, which only seems to wake the boy even more. once he hears a similar drawn out groan, this time in the form of _“seok?”_ and sees seungyoun’s bleary eyes blinking open, he breaks his own silence.

“good morning, i, um, made you some tea... and there's some pills on the bedside table with it, ‘cause i thought that you would probably have a headache? since you went out and had a few drinks last night, y’know. there’s a bottle of water, too, in case you don’t want the-”

wooseok isn’t even aware that he’s rambling nervously until seungyoun groans _again_, which… makes sense. he’s only just woken up, of course he doesn’t want to hear wooseok’s incessant rambling.

with that in mind he stays silent whenever seungyoun slowly but surely rises into a sitting position against the headboard, and as he downs his pills with a lengthy swig of his tea, and even as he closes his eyes and takes his time finishing off his tea.

seungyoun’s brows are furrowed as he drinks, and wooseok would pay anything to know what was going on in his mind.

if he takes advantage of seungyoun’s closed eyes to glance at the skin exposed from where the blanket fell whenever he sat up, who can really blame him?

“thanks for taking care of me last night… and now.” seungyoun finally croaks out after a while, two fingers against his temple and brows furrowed as if he’s trying to instantly will the headache away himself.

wooseok gives him a small smile, the one he always gives him after he says that, thinking back to however many countless times he’s heard seungyoun thank him for the same thing over the time they’ve known each other.

his nerves are eating away at his courage with each passing moment, though, so he isn’t sure if he’s even able to bring up the night before without projectile vomiting on the both of them.

with his eyes locked on the mug in seungyoun’s hand, wooseok takes in a deep breath and opens his mouth to speak only to have the other boy stand up from the bed and head for the bathroom (still stark naked, because he just _had_ to develop a crush on a boy who loves to be naked and has no shame). _damnit_.

“my body is so stiff," wooseok hears his barely audible voice, “did i run a marathon last night or something before coming home?”

seungyoun catches wooseok’s gaze whenever he exits the bathroom a second later chuckling, his lips spread into a grin that puts his little dimples on full display, and wooseok’s heart stutters painfully in his chest.

_seungyoun doesn’t remember_. of course he doesn’t.

...or he does, and he’s pretending like nothing happened to spare wooseok’s feelings.

either way, wooseok is so completely and utterly fucked.

“i guess so,” he agrees brightly in response, attempting to speak around the lump in his throat and pretend as if nothing is wrong.

he should’ve known that something was off, when seungyoun hadn’t even mentioned anything about the previous night or done anything differently, merely saying the same exact thing he did to him every single time he woke up with a hangover that wooseok was there to help him with.

to seungyoun, if he doesn’t remember, it’s just another night that he got drunk and came home to wake up to his roommate taking care of him.

alternatively, if he does remember, wooseok is a dumbass. a complete _idiot_, for believing that seungyoun would ever want anything to do with him romantically, or sexually, or that he would have _anything_ other than platonic feelings for wooseok.

maybe he hadn’t gotten enough attention whenever he went out, so he had to settle for what he could get in his frustration… which just so happened to end up being his pathetic roommate, who’d quite literally been begging for it.

so, of course he wants to pretend that it didn’t happen, because sleeping with your best friend and roommate certainly isn’t the greatest decision, is it?

no matter what the case is, he can’t believe he had been so foolish as to sleep with the boy that he's been crushing on for months and expect a fairytale outcome.

as soon as seungyoun is crawling back into the bed, wooseok immediately distances himself, standing up and attempting to keep his facial expression neutral despite the pain he feels emotionally and physically.

“i have to go, like… i have to be somewhere. right now, so, i’m gonna go. i’m going to be late, and i’m just... yeah,” his words are awkward and crushed as he crosses the room to place his cup down on the desk, and his hand is already gripping the doorknob whenever seungyoun’s perplexed voice reaches him and stops him in his tracks.

“…in your boxers?”

“yes,” he answers on instinct, before looking down at himself and realizing that, yes, he is still half naked. “fuck. _no_.”

“wooseok, you aren’t just trying to get away from me, are you? ‘cause i’ve noticed you doing that a lot lately, and i just… i _miss_ you. can’t you just stay? i really want to talk to you.”

annoyingly enough, seungyoun proves to be an effective and unwelcome distraction, speaking the entire time he's looking through his dresser for a pair of jeans, ultimately finding one that he discovers isn’t even his whenever he pulls it on to see the rips at the knees and the hems that go past the heels of his feet.

quickly rolling up the ends, ignoring that they’re uneven whenever he’s finished, he pushes down the guilt stirring in the pit of his stomach and the way that his eyes sting when he goes to slip his shoes on.

“can’t. sorry, i just. i told you, i’ve got somewhere to be right now. forgot that i was supposed to meet seungwoo today.”

it's a lie, he hasn’t spoken to seungwoo since the other day, but he had to have some sort of excuse, although he only reminds himself of what seungyoun had said the night before with it, how he always runs off or ignores him whenever it's just the two of them alone.

catching the tail end of a truly pitiful ‘alright, bye’ coming from the other boy before he exits the room, he only realizes that he left his phone behind once he’s halfway down the hallway.

a couple of passersby give him judging looks as he leans against the wall and sinks to the floor, pulling his knees to his chest, but he just can’t find it in himself to be too concerned about them whenever he can feel a crushing weight pushing down on his heart, constricting his breathing and making him wonder why he'd allowed himself to be used like that.

he’d been completely sober, he could’ve said no. wooseok had every right to push seungyoun away, to say no, to tell him that it wasn’t the right thing to do. not when he was tipsy.

but he hadn’t.

  


* * *

  


“by the way, are you wearing seungyoun’s jeans?”

“hyung, now is _not_ the time. i just need you to hold me.”

their words are hushed, seungwoo’s spoken into wooseok’s hair and wooseok’s against seungwoo’s neck from where they’re curled up together on his bed.

after wooseok had shaken his head in response to any questions seungwoo asked him about what happened when he got there, he’d given up and sighed before leading him to the bed so they could cuddle, because seungwoo always knows just what he needs.

he’s more than grateful to have a friend like seungwoo, who answered his door at ten in the morning on a saturday even after a night of partying just to comfort him, he truly is, and wooseok had told him so whenever he’d walked in just to relish in the blinding grin that appeared on the other boy’s lips.

they’re silent for a long while, staying cuddled up to one another even as seungwoo’s phone goes off a few times and his roommate has come and gone. seungwoo’s presence has calmed him some, but seungyoun is still a constant in his thoughts that he wishes would just _go away_.

he figures that seungwoo’s fallen asleep, until he hears a soft voice ask, "how’re you feeling now?"

in trying to tell him that he hates his life, something resembling _"i have mom loaf,"_ is groaned lowly in response instead, muffled into the fabric of seungwoo’s shirt.

"what? seok, what're you talking about?" seungwoo’s tone is one of confusion, and wooseok lets out a heavy sigh before pulling away enough to be able to speak clearly.

"i hate my life." and... well, that makes a lot more sense.

"he didn't remember," wooseok chokes out after a minute, fresh tears springing to his eyes as he takes in a shaky breath.

“who?”

since seungwoo had allowed him to cry into his shirt, wooseok figures that he deserves the truth.

"he- he came home last night, and he was drunk, and... he kissed me, seungwoo, seungyoun _kissed me_, and then we had sex, and." he’s forced to pause as his face falls into seungwoo’s shoulder again, a sob crawling its way out of his throat and numerous more following it, making it to where he can’t even continue.

the arms around him tighten considerably and he hears comforting words being whispered to him, the hand stroking his back eventually lulling him to sleep.

a few hours later, wooseok wakes up with an itch in his throat and a pounding headache, his head resting on seungwoo’s chest.

for a few blissful moments, he’s unaware of why he’s even there, eyes squinting open to glance up at the blonde with a little smile on his lips, because he isn't exactly going to question waking up comfortably cuddled up to one of his best friends.

the delusion is ruined whenever he hears seungwoo speaking lowly on the phone (obviously trying to keep from waking him), however, and the moment he catches a murmur of his name as well as seungyoun’s, it all comes back to him.

wooseok hates that even the _mention_ of him and the remembrance of the night before has a pathetic whine coming from the back of his throat as he pushes his face into the other boy’s chest, tears already welling up in his eyes.

it’s that moment that seungwoo realizes he’s awake and promptly hangs up without so much as a goodbye, or maybe he’d just been too busy sniffling and wallowing in self pity to hear it.

“yohan and hangyul say hi?”

at wooseok’s half-hearted glare up at him, seungwoo is quick to explain.

“i didn’t tell them anything, okay? yohan was just asking if i’d gotten here safely after dropping them off last night, cause i was their designated driver. we were only talking about seungyoun ‘cause he called them up after you left, so they’re hanging together today. they were asking if i wanted to go, but i told 'em we were spending the day together and to not wait up for us."

with a sigh, wooseok doesn’t bother to respond and brings a hand up to rub at his tired eyes.

“do you… do you even _want_ them to know?”

all wooseok can do is shake his head as he toys with a loose string at the sleeve of seungwoo’s shirt, because if he were to tell the other boys, he wouldn’t just be telling them about his idiotic mistake, they would end up finding out all about his crush on seungyoun.

there’s only so much pity he can take, and at the moment he’d like to keep the amount between him and seungwoo, thank you very much.


	2. wish you'd let me stay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!! warning !!! dumb boys ahead proceed at own risk.

“hyung.”

“hm?”

“are you alright? we’ve been sitting here for nearly ten minutes and you still haven’t touched your food.”

seungyoun sighs in an exasperated manner at hangyul’s words, shaking his head in answer to his question as well as to break his fixed gaze away from the table. rubbing nervously at the back of his neck, he considers his next words.

he’s not even sure if he should be telling them, but it’s been eating away at him since he woke up, and telling wooseok was completely off of the table. it’s not like he would’ve even gotten the chance to, after he quite literally ran out of their dorm earlier to meet up with seungwoo.

it’s just been driving him crazy, that wooseok is blatantly ignoring him, and he has no idea what he’s done to make him so upset with him. seungyoun doesn’t know why wooseok can’t even stand to be in the same room as him, and he would give anything just to understand what happened, what _changed_.

he’s talked about his frustration with hangyul, but yohan he’s been a bit more cautious with, since he’s the one that wooseok has practically replaced him with in almost every way but switching roommates to live with him.

yohan’s existence is number three on seungyoun’s _‘possible reasons for why wooseok is ignoring me’_ list.

“i just… i had this dream.”

yohan snorts in amusement from where he’s sitting beside seungyoun in the booth. “nice one, martin luther king sunbaenim.”

rolling his eyes, seungyoun decides to ignore him in favor of continuing and explaining himself.

“it was about wooseok. and, like, i told him everything i’ve been wanting to for forever, right? or.. a week, _whatever_. basically as long as he’s been ignoring me. anyway, forever and a week are practically the same thing, ‘cause it _feels_ like it’s been forever even though it’s only been a week or so, you know what i mean?”

by then, he can tell that the other two are already bored of his little story, because a glance over at hangyul across from him has his friend with his phone in hand and yohan is still shoveling a scone into his mouth.

seungyoun is more than aware that his storytelling is often ignored due to his tendency to get off topic and dragging it out until everyone is groaning at him to just get on with it already, but, _honestly_. this is important.

“guys, c’mon, this is serious,” seungyoun frowns. “you can text dohyon later, hangyul.”

he only continues once yohan has dramatically pushed what was left of his scone aside on the table and hangyul’s phone is placed right beside it, face down as to not distract him.

“okay, so… i told him all that stuff, and how i miss him. he didn’t really say anything, ‘cause my mind obviously can’t seem to put words into wooseok’s mouth. makes sense, since he’s always talking crazy and you can never really guess what he’s gonna say anyways.” a little smile finds its way onto seungyoun’s lips then, and he’s blissfully unaware of his friends sharing a knowing look.

“and then i _kissed_ him. that’s crazy, right?”

silence and curious stares follow his words, and seungyoun chuckles, shaking his head as he pulls his beanie further down his head.

“i mean, i just kissed him out of nowhere. i don’t think i’ve ever even thought of kissing wooseok before, not really. but in my dream, i did, and then… we had sex. is it.. it’s normal to have dreams like that about your friends, right?”

seungyoun glares over at yohan when he hears him snort yet again, and turns his head to give the same treatment to hangyul when he lets out a laugh he’s obviously been holding in for a while.

that only sets yohan off, and they’re laughing together for a few moments while seungyoun huffs and crosses his arms over his chest, wondering what in the _world_ they found so funny about it. it’s not like he’s been worrying himself over the dream all morning or anything.

finally, their laughter calms down and hangyul takes it upon himself to speak up.

“hyung, please. why are you taking it so seriously? literally everyone who’s met wooseok hyung has probably had a wet dream about him. i mean… yohan told me a few weeks after meeting him that he accidentally got off thinking about him, and-”

“hangyul, i told you that in confidence!”

“_and_,” hangyul repeats a bit louder than before, “even before that, seungwoo laughed at me whenever i went to him and told him i had a dream about wooseok, ‘cause he dealt with the same thing. you’re just late to the party, and you’re freaking out for no reason. wooseok is just… _wooseok_, you know? he’s beautiful, it’s impossible to resist him.”

while he knows they’re right, and he certainly heard more than he cared to know, it just seemed so… realistic. _too_ realistic, though he knows that it couldn’t have happened. he doesn’t even see wooseok like that.

does he?

no. he can’t.

only, he hasn’t stopped thinking about how pretty dream wooseok looked after seungyoun kissed him, and he doesn’t think that’s normal.

—

when yohan excuses himself to go to the bathroom, hangyul takes a more serious approach to seungyoun’s admission.

“hyung, do you think your dream happen because you’re jealous wooseok hyung has been hanging around yohan lately?” 

seungyoun almost chokes on his coffee. jealous? no, no, no. he’s not jealous.

...he not, right? he’s only been frustrated by the lack of communication and skinship recently because they’re supposed to be best friends, not because he’s jealous. it’s not like he’s harboring any bitterness towards yohan for doing whatever it is he’s doing that’s made wooseok gravitate towards him instead.

not at all. 

no, he’s not jealous. he’s not bitter. he just wants his best friend back.

“absolutely not. i mean, we’re just friends! it might feel... weird seeing him cuddling up to yohan when he usually cuddles up to me, but. that doesn’t mean anything.”

hangyul opens his mouth to speak, but apparently seungyoun isn’t quite done with his word vomit. 

“just because i miss spending time with him doesn’t mean i’m jealous, or anything at all, even. it just means i miss him. it doesn’t have to mean anything else. i just. i love him —platonically, of course. and he barely speaks to me anymore. he doesn’t even look at me anymore, hangyul.”

at this point, seungyoun isn’t sure if he’s trying to convince hangyul or himself and he knows the pout he’s sporting is pathetic. 

“i think you need to dig deep in that pea-sized brain of yours,” “_hey!_” “and think long and hard about why you might be acting like this. because you sound really lost, hyung.”

seungyoun shoves the rest of yohan’s scone into his mouth instead of responding.

it’s what yohan deserves, for his scone to be stolen just like his wooseok was stolen from him.

* * *

it’s an hour later in bed when seungyoun feels like he’s overthinking it, just a little bit.

jealous?

jealousy requires feelings that seungyoun doesn’t have. 

or does he?

there’s something that tugs at his heartstrings when he gets a notification, something of seungwoo hyung posting on instagram for the first time in a while, and the thumbnail includes a certain boy he knows seungwoo is with right now.

he clicks on it, because he’s stupid, and feels the same frustration he’s been directing towards yohan in the way that wooseok’s arms are wrapped around seungwoo’s waist and he can tell from the angle that wooseok is _in his lap_.

the caption taunts him.

_‘cutest boy in the world. my favorite dongsaeng. spare him some lovely words, ‘cause he could really use it right now.’_

seungyoun throws his phone to the ground. what the fuck?

as if seungyoun doesn’t tell wooseok lovely things all of the time. seungyoun is always telling him how adorable he is, cheering him on when he’s struggling, by his side when he can tell wooseok just needs someone close.

wooseok ran to seungwoo for comfort, when seungyoun was quite literally right there. he ran out without his phone, just to escape seungyoun.

suddenly, he has a thought.

without his phone.

seungyoun narrows his eyes in the direction of wooseok’s nightstand. there his phone sits, charger attached, and he knows it’s an invasion of privacy, but.

but.

no. absolutely not. he can’t do that to wooseok. he knows wooseok’s passcode out of trust, just like wooseok knows his, and he’s not going to break that line of trust.

except... he just wants to take a look, a harmless little glance.

—

“seok, your phone is calling me.” wooseok’s eyes widen comically when seungwoo turns his phone to show his name and contact photo.

“fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck. he- he’s calling. oh shit.”

“do i answer it?”

“i... do you want to answer it?”

“_wooseok_. he knows i’m with you, he’s gonna want to speak with you. it doesn’t matter if _i_-”

he doesn’t let seungwoo finish, snatches the phone out of his hand in panic of running out of time to answer, and his mouth gapes open as he thinks of something to say.

“uh, han seungwoo... can’t come to the phone right now. please leave a message at the beep.”

pathetically, he continues, face scrunched, “...beep.”

there’s silence on the other end, and wooseok can only imagine what seungyoun is thinking.

“you don’t sound anything like seungwoo hyung, wooseok.” fuck, fuck, he’s so stupid. he opens his mouth to apologize, but seungyoun is speaking again before he can.

“it’s okay, i get it. i’m not dumb, i know you don’t want to talk to me. i don’t know why, but. it’s okay. i’m not judging, i just… i miss you.”

—

seungyoun doesn’t know where he’s getting all of this courage from.

he surely didn’t have enough to look through wooseok’s phone, not after seeing wooseok’s lock screen and homescreen. the former, a photo of the two together; a selfie they took a few weeks prior, sporting face masks and wooseok’s mid-laugh from seungyoun making a silly face.

what broke seungyoun, however, was the latter being a candid of himself. he’s not even sure when it was taken, he’s not even looking at the camera but at the photographer, eyes disappearing with his wide grin and his arm blocking a bit of the frame, most likely reaching out to wooseok.

seungyoun thinks that wooseok must’ve taken it one of the many times seungyoun toys with him for always being on his phone, poking and prodding at him until he’d finally cave and put it away.

his heart aches for simpler times. his heart aches for wooseok.

the silence from wooseok’s side of the phone call makes him gulp, heart racing in his chest, but seungyoun knows that he’s listening. he actually answered the call, which seungyoun didn’t think would happen in the first place, so he either speaks now or has to forever hold his peace. whatever the saying was.

“i don’t know what i did to make you avoid me like this, but… if you want to tell me, i promise that i’m all ears. i just want to make things better. tell me what i did wrong, so i can fix it. please?”

radio silence.

“wooseok?”

the call disconnects.

* * *

the sky is void of any sunlight before seungyoun sees wooseok again, the smaller boy slinking into their dorm as if he won’t be seen. it’s cute, the way he’s trying to be stealthy with his keys clutched tight in his little hands so they don’t jingle and make noise, closing the door at a snail’s pace so he won’t disturb the silence of the darkened room.

when wooseok flicks on the desk lamp to see, he jumps at the greeting from his roommate, finally visible in the dim light.

“come back for your phone?”

wooseok’s doe eyes are wider than he’s ever seen them, his mouth opening and closing as he thinks of something to say.

god, he’s so cute, seungyoun thinks indignantly. so, so unbelievably cute.

“i... yeah,” of course, the response he was expecting, “i was going to, um, spend the night. at seungwoo’s. i just. i needed my phone.”

wooseok speaks choppily, grabbing at his phone and pulling his charger out of the wall, looking around for something when seungyoun stands to approach him.

the way wooseok retreats from him hurts. it hurts, because seungyoun doesn’t know what he’s done to make wooseok so uncomfortable around him. he just wants answers.

“wooseok-”

“have you seen my shirt? the one with the stripes, and the shirt collar on it? i could’ve sworn i saw it in here the other day,” wooseok cuts him off, beginning to sift through his dresser, and seungyoun feels his eye twitch.

he’s still trying to act like seungyoun doesn’t know what he’s doing.

wooseok’s cheeks are red; he’s nervous, seungyoun can tell. he begs his thoughts not to make comparisons to his dream, how pretty and flushed wooseok looked then, similar to now but without the dazed look in his eyes and spit slick red lips telling seungyoun how badly he wants him.

not now, not now, his mind chants.

when seungyoun moves closer, wooseok finds something to grab out of the drawer and shuts it, attempting to cross the room to get away. he reminds seungyoun of a cat, scurrying away at the slightest movement.

seungyoun might actually break and strangle wooseok for his attempts at evading him yet again.

“you’re not leaving.”

“what?” wooseok finally looks at him, perplexed.

“you need to sit down so we can talk about this.”

the word ‘talk’ sparks panic in him, apparently, and seungyoun has to block wooseok from bolting for the door, stepping in his way and grasping his wrists when he tries shoving at seungyoun’s chest.

“no, no. you don’t get to run away again,” seungyoun doesn’t let wooseok go despite his squirms, “we live together, you’re going to have to talk to me some time. we can’t do this all semester.”

eventually, wooseok relents, and seungyoun is left with little palms flat on his chest and heaving breaths in the foot of space between them.

“let me go,” wooseok whines.

“are you gonna be good?”

seungyoun doesn’t realize how it comes out until he says it, and he’s about to apologize for sounding weird, but he’s silenced by wooseok nodding wordlessly as he’s looking up at him.

he gulps. well. that’s interesting.

“you’re not leaving,” seungyoun warns him, thankful for his voice not cracking when his throat was left dry at wooseok’s pretty eyes on him. it’s just been so long, is all. that’s it.

“okay,” wooseok sighs.

“okay?”

“okay, seungyounie.”

still, seungyoun doesn’t release the grip on wooseok’s wrists. he can’t think straight. wooseok is there, he’s not leaving, they’re going to _talk_ seungyoun isn’t sure why he thought that he was ready for this, but that’s not going to stop him from doing it.

first thing he needs to know, “why did you hang up on me? why did you pretend you didn’t answer seungwoo hyung’s phone in the first place? i know your voice, wooseok. i know it was you.”

wooseok is so close. before, the proximity would be nothing out of the ordinary, but after a week of wooseok being out of reach… everything feels new. feels different.

to seungyoun’s dismay, wooseok doesn’t answer any of his questions.

“why were you on my phone? you could’ve called from your own. what did you see on there?” he doesn’t like wooseok’s accusatory tone, resents the lack of trust between them that seungyoun clearly holds in a higher regard than wooseok does.

“don’t deflect, you know that i wouldn’t do that,” seungyoun knows he sounds like a kicked puppy, but he hardens soon after. “what would i find on there, then? what are you afraid of?”

wooseok doesn’t answer.

seungyoun’s eyes narrow, “are you in some kind of secret relationship with yohan or something? is that what this is? you can’t be close with me anymore now?”

the smaller boy sputters, attempting to struggle against seungyoun’s grip again, but he doesn’t give in that easily. “no, oh god, no. i’m not dating yohan. he’s got a thing for hangyul, anyway, i—”

wooseok gasps like he’s been shot. “i wasn’t supposed to tell you that. fuck.”

while seungyoun is only mildly interested in this revelation of yohan liking hangyul, and heavily relieved by the clarification of the two not dating, he’s mostly just further frustrated now that he has absolutely no clue why wooseok has been avoiding him.

“then fucking answer me,” seungyoun demands, voice lowering when he tacks on a ‘please’ after realizing it came out quite harshly.

wooseok looks terrified, and it’s then that seungyoun releases hold of his wrists, noticing then that his hands are shaking. he doesn’t want to scare wooseok, make him feel like he’s in a situation he can’t get out of, no matter how badly seungyoun wants him to stay.

thankfully, wooseok perches on the corner of the bed instead of running off like seungyoun feared.

“i don’t like yohan.”

“okay.”

“um.”

seungyoun is patient.

“how do you feel about that?”

seungyoun is… confused.

“how do i feel about you.. not liking yohan?” seungyoun reiterates the question, words coming out slowly just in case he’s missing something here.

“yes. how do you feel about me not liking yohan?” wooseok is eyeing him, like he’s waiting for seungyoun to pick up on something. seungyoun is so, so very lost.

“i feel like… i don’t know what you want me to say.”

at his response, wooseok’s shoulders droop, like he’s disappointed. seungyoun drags his hands over his face, squatting before wooseok on the bed and taking the other boy’s hands into his own. his fingers squeeze at wooseok’s.

“seokie, i don’t know what you want from me. i just know that i miss you, and clearly i’ve done something to make you not interested in me anymore.”

at his wording, wooseok’s eyes snap up to his.

he tries to backtrack, scrambling to find the words to say that’ll make wooseok feel better, “you just don’t want to be around me anymore, i mean. i just… i fucked up somehow, and i just wanna fix it, seok, let me fix it. please. whatever it is, you can tell me, i won’t judge you.”

seungyoun feels like he’s walking on ice with wooseok. it’s felt like that for the past week, but especially now. now, with their eyes locked. now, with wooseok’s hands clasped in his. now, with wooseok’s face mere inches from his own.

“seungyoun.”

wooseok’s voice trembles, and seungyoun squeezes his hands again. “yeah?”

“last night,” wooseok begins, stopping when seungyoun’s hands retreat to cover his mouth.

fuck. 

last night. his dream.

wooseok must have heard him moan his name in his sleep, or something similar.

maybe it wasn’t the first time, maybe last night’s dream was the only he could remember. maybe, just maybe, a week prior he had a similar dream. maybe that’s why wooseok is avoiding him, because he thinks seungyoun has feelings for him.

_does seungyoun have feelings for him?_

fuck.

he can’t afford to think about that now, when their friendship is on the line. now, when he has to squash the blooming in his chest when he knows what it might do to them if wooseok is acting like this from hearing seungyoun moan his name in his sleep.

“seok, i promise it’s not like that. it was just a dream, it was nothing. i… i barely even remember it, honestly. it doesn’t mean anything.”

wooseok stares blankly at him, and seungyoun is mid-panic. “i mean, everyone has sex dreams about their friends, right..? yohan and hangyul told me they’ve had sex dreams about you, too. and seungwoo! it’s… it’s funny, right?”

seungyoun is more than willing to throw his friends under the bus if it means clearing his name with wooseok and getting things back to normal. he feels no shame sharing their dirty laundry, and he’s thinking it’ll get at least a chuckle out of wooseok since he seems to have been freaking out about it.

only, wooseok isn’t laughing. seungyoun continues panicking.

“wooseok. please tell me our friendship isn’t going to be ruined because i’m having sex dreams about you. i don’t even know why it’s happening! i mean, of course you’re beautiful, anyone can see that. of course i’m attracted to you, pretty much everyone is. you’re my best friend, i’d be blind to not see that.”

wooseok blinks at him. once, twice, and the third he inhales deeply and doesn’t open his eyes.

“wooseok-”

“please. for the love of god, seungyoun, shut the fuck up.”

seungyoun gulps.

they’re silent for a long time, wooseok’s eyes remaining closed and the panic steadily growing in seungyoun. he just wants wooseok to say something, anything, wants to smack himself for being so stupid, wants to get up because by now he’s a bit uncomfortable squatting.

“everything is fine. i forgive you,” wooseok says, finally, and seungyoun sighs.

wait, what? 

“just like that?”

“yes.”

“what,” and then, “so… that was it? you were uncomfortable because i was having dreams about you?”

“yep.”

seungyoun is dumbfounded. the wooseok he thought he knew would’ve teased him endlessly about some little sex dream, he wouldn’t have avoided seungyoun and jeopardize their friendship over it.

“oh.”

there has to be more. but wooseok clearly isn’t going to tell him right now, so he lets it go. “so.. everything can go back to normal, now?”

wooseok nods, straightening his shoulders and letting out a little laugh. “yeah. back to normal. sorry i was being so weird about it, uh, i don’t know what came over me.”

he thinks seungyoun is stupid, that seungyoun doesn’t know him well enough by now to know that he’s lying. yet, seungyoun plays along, shows off his lopsided grin to wooseok and tackles him onto the bed.

“thank god, i missed you so much.”

wooseok is giggling as seungyoun unleashes an attack of affection upon him, legs tangling and his hands pushing wooseok’s cheeks together, pressing kisses to his forehead. seungyoun’s heart clenches painfully in his chest.

wooseok is hiding something from him, and he’s going to figure it out whether wooseok likes it or not.

* * *

things go back to normal, for the most part. 

wooseok is back to the clingy, affectionate best friend seungyoun knows him to be, and blissfully oblivious to his efforts in finding out whatever secret he’s hiding from seungyoun that caused their week of separation.

their friends, while suffering whiplash from seungyoun and wooseok going from not speaking one day to their usual disgusting displays of affection the next, couldn’t be happier with the revival of their group chat (appropriately named ‘five lizards in a trenchcoat’).

except, seungyoun’s eyes have been paying one friend in particular attention more now than ever before. 

following wooseok, seungwoo is one of seungyoun’s closest friends. and while he always thought yohan was wooseok’s seungwoo, their week of trouble in paradise has him thinking that maybe _seungwoo_ is also wooseok’s seungwoo.

wooseok ran to seungwoo in his time of trouble, and it could be because he was having issues with seungyoun and seungwoo knows him better than he knows himself, but… something nags at him.

if he thought the idea of wooseok and yohan having something going on behind his back made him sick, the thought of wooseok with seungwoo makes him nauseous.

it shouldn’t. he should be happy for his friends, he’s always been the type to soak up their happiness as if it’s his own, but this is different.

wooseok is his best friend. seungwoo is _also_ his best friend, but… he can’t imagine wooseok with him. can’t imagine wooseok with anyone, really. and he needs to unpack this thought, but it feels like ever since he had _the dream_, there are about twenty suitcases lined up before him and he can’t even begin to think about which one to unzip first.

seungyoun thinks about asking wooseok himself about these suspicions, but he can’t trust wooseok to tell him the truth right now. so, he settles for plan b.

“hey, youn-ah. sorry i’m running a little late,” his hair is ruffled by the hand belonging to an all too familiar voice, and seungyoun looks up at his boba date with a grateful smile for disrupting his mind’s incessant wondering.

“seungwoo hyung! i’ve only been waiting, like, seven years. it’s fine. what kept you?”

wooseok has a class scheduled now, but his mind still finds a way to insert wooseok into seungwoo’s dorm; keeping him from leaving with that irresistible smile of his, sprawled out on _seungwoo’s_ bed, calling _seungwoo_ to join him, his pretty mouth pouting around the word ‘hyung’ to _seungwoo_, and.

seungyoun has really got to stop thinking about them.

“oh, my sister called me and it slowed me down some. i hung up right before i got here,” seungwoo sits across from him, and guilt overcomes seungyoun for any feelings of bitterness he’s been having for some silly fantasy of seungwoo stealing his best friend away.

“don’t worry, hyung, i understand. you can barely make time for little ol’ me anymore, i get it,” seungyoun, playful as usual, heaves out a heavy, dramatic sigh that seungwoo laughs at.

“seungyounnie,” seungwoo coos, reaching over to pat seungyoun’s cheek, “just say you miss me, it’s okay!”

now’s his chance. “yeah, we haven’t been spending enough time together. you’ve replaced me with wooseok, according to your insta.”

“_my favorite dongsaeng_,” seungyoun mocks with his arms crossing over his chest, lip jutting out in a pout. “i thought i was your favorite.”

he’s waiting for seungwoo’s reponse, ready to gauge if it’s defensive, shameful, tense, awkward, et cetera. it’s possible that seungyoun might have a theory for each possible outcome, a result of overthinking and hyper fixating.

seungwoo is silent for a moment, head canting to the side as he seemingly tries to find something to say. hesitant, okay, that means he has something to hide.

“he was in a tough spot, and i’m the dad friend,” seungwoo matches seungyoun’s pout with one of his own, “you can’t expect me to turn him away.”

seungyoun’s eye twitches. that’s true, and a valid excuse, but he’s still suspicious.

“so…” seungyoun does’t think before opening his mouth, “did wooseok tell you why he was ignoring me?”

seungyoun can see seungwoo’s adam apple bob as he gulps. nervous, okay, that means he’s in on whatever wooseok is hiding from him. one more step, and he’ll be close to finding out what they’re doing to him.

he’ll find out eventually.

as always, seungyoun is patient.

“did he tell _you_?”

huh?

“what does that mean? did he not tell you?” honestly, seungyoun was expecting seungwoo to bring it up; to tease him for his dreams that he found out through wooseok. the question in response to his own just confuses his poor brain.

“he told me… what i already know.”

now seungyoun is incredibly confused.

“how did you know about me having sex dreams about wooseok?!”

seungwoo gapes at him. “you had _what?!_”

oh. so, maybe seungwoo didn’t know about that. he’s curious as to why, and further makes the connection that he’s been right all along about his dream(s) not being the root of the problem at all. 

“you… have been having sex dreams about wooseok?” seungwoo sounds pained.

“i thought you knew,” seungyoun shrugs, “i had one the night before we made up that i remember, and i kind of.. assumed that i probably first had one the day he started avoiding me.”

seungwoo doesn’t seem jealous, so seungyoun is halfway to crossing off the idea of the two having an illicit affair. thank god.

“wooseok didn’t tell me that.”

“so what did he tell you?” seungyoun is desperate at this point. 

“_seungyoun! seungwoo!_” fuck.

seungyoun curses under his breath when the girl at the counter calls their name for the boba order he put in when he arrived. he just wants answers, damnit.

seungwoo practically runs at the chance to avoid answering seungyoun, and when they’re back face to face, he takes more time than he should’ve drinking from his straw to avoid answering.

“you look stupid,” seungyoun tells him.

“shwut uwp,” seungwoo mutters, mouth full of boba pearls.

they both break out into laughter, and though seungwoo almost chokes on the pearls, they make it out alive with only a few odd stares.

seungwoo changes the subject to the boys he’s been tutoring, cha junho and lee eunsang, and the conversation flows naturally from then. it’s comfortable, and he forgets for a little while, feels at peace without his confusion over his feelings for wooseok weighing on his mind. 

seungyoun wants to bring it up again, but he doesn’t have the heart. he wants to know the truth, but getting it through seungwoo doesn’t seem possible now that he seems just as confused as seungyoun.

It’s not until the end of the hour when they’re about to part ways that seungwoo meets his gaze.

“i can’t give you the answers you want, youn. you and wooseok need to really talk, ‘cause he lied to both of us. and i’m always here for you, okay?” he squeezes seungyoun’s shoulder reassuringly, “just because wooseok confided in me, doesn’t mean that i don’t still have your back, too. i’m not picking sides.”

seungyoun gives him a defeated yet appreciative smile, sure to nod so that seungwoo doesn’t think he’s forgotten that they always have each other. “i know. thanks, hyung. i’m glad we did this.”

“text me, ryeongie,” seungwoo says his name cutely, and seungyoun giggles.

“in your dreams, seungie!”

* * *

when seungyoun returns to the dorm, he’s in better spirits. don’t get him wrong, his brain is still a muddled mess, but he feels better knowing that some of his suspicions were wrong. he doesn’t know what he would’ve done if he truly got the implications of seungwoo and wooseok being together, feels a weight lifted off of his chest for some reason.

“mhm… okay, i’ll see you tomorrow,” seungyoun hears wooseok from the bed, and he wonders how quietly he must’ve been speaking on the phone to not be heard until then.

“who was that?”

“oh, it was byungchan,” the name is familiar, one of seungwoo’s friends they’ve hung around plenty of times before, “we have a class together on thursdays, he was just calling to ask if i wanted to grab coffee beforehand.”

seungyoun hums, and they’re silent as he’s changing into more comfortable clothes to join wooseok where he’s lounging in seungyoun’s bed.

wooseok is warm, and seungyoun pulls him to cuddle closer, wraps an arm around wooseok when he curls up onto him; leg thrown over seungyoun’s, head tucked into his shoulder, and phone perched on his chest where wooseok is scrolling through some app.

he didn’t realize how well they fit together, how wooseok fits like a puzzle piece by seungyoun’s side, how it feels so perfectly natural, how it feels like they’ve been doing this their entire lives.

seungyoun’s fingers card through wooseok’s hair, corners of his lips curling up when he feels the phone plop down flat on his chest. he loves turning wooseok all pliant and soft from playing with his hair, loves coercing those happy little sighs from his lips.

“seungyoun,” he’s close to drifting off when he hears wooseok’s voice.

“hm?”

“what if i like it?”

seungyoun turns his head and peeks an eye open to see wooseok glancing up at him, fluffy hair fanning out across seungyoun’s arm and shoulder.

he takes too long to respond, just blinks at him, and wooseok reiterates his question. “what if i like that you dreamt about me?”

that certainly wasn’t something that seungyoun’s prepared to answer. his heart rate spikes as he searches wooseok’s gaze for any sort of teasing, any inkling as to why he’s bringing it up so suddenly. why he’s admitting to liking it, admitting to feeling something towards seungyoun that’s past the point of just friendship.

“you...” seungyoun is careful, cautious, “you like it?”

wooseok squirms. “i said _‘what if’_, it’s just.. hypothetical. don’t take it too seriously, just.. answer the question.”

it feels like there’s a galaxy swirling in the pit of seungyoun’s stomach, hot and glowing and he can feel each and every star burning in him and he can’t look away from wooseok. he thinks wooseok is the brightest star of them all.

“if you did, you could just say so. you never know what might come of it,” he’s still not sure where he stands with wooseok after that week of silence, not sure where wooseok stands with him in his current predicament, either.

seungyoun’s fingers go back to playing with wooseok’s hair to calm him, realizing wooseok’s body tensed against his own. “hypothetically, i wouldn’t think any different of you. you know that, right, seokie?” he murmurs softly, maintaining eye contact throughout his reassurances, “nothing would change between us. we’re still us, no matter what.”

wooseok’s mouth opens, tongue wetting his lips.

“did you like it?” seungyoun asks, innocently.

maybe not so innocently, his fingers cup the back of wooseok’s neck, and seungyoun struggles to breathe in with the way that he’s so lax in his grip now, eyes heavy lidded. seungyoun can’t stop himself, hears the words spill from his lips before he has the chance to reel them back in.

“did you hear me call you pretty, is that what you liked?”

they’ve never done anything like this before, despite their harmless teasing and skinship and people mistaking them as a couple, have never gone further than spending nights in each others beds. neither seungyoun nor wooseok liked sleeping alone, so it was easier to fall into each others arms at the end of every day.

sure, wooseok knows that seungyoun likes to be in control of his partners, just like he knows wooseok likes to be babied and taken care of. but they’ve never put that knowledge to use, never had a reason to. not until now.

seungyoun doesn’t even know if he’s doing this right, if wooseok even wants this, if he even knows what _this_ is.

“seok, baby, you okay?” he asks, and wooseok seems to be shaken from his daze when seungyoun squeezes at the nape of his neck, letting out a little noise in affirmation. 

“m’okay. uh huh. yeah. um, i can’t think straight with your hand on my neck,” he sounds out of it, and seungyoun goes to move his hand but halts at wooseok’s weak protests.

“no, no, it’s fine, don’t move. i like it. i mean, h-hypothetically. maybe. if i liked your dreams, i might like this.” god. seungyoun has never been so attracted to him than in this moment, cheeks ablaze and rambling and speaking in tongues and pretending like he doesn’t like his best friend dreaming (currently, thinking) of fucking him.

seungyoun needs to take this information into consideration. for all of his theories of information being hidden from him and brooding over wooseok’s possible secret relationships with their friends, he didn’t stop to think that maybe, just maybe, wooseok was avoiding him because of something else entirely.

“wooseok, i need you to stop me if you’re uncomfortable, okay? if you tell me to stop, i’m going to stop.” with no context to go off of, the smaller boy’s brows furrow and he’s surely about to ask what seungyoun is talking about, but.

seungyoun kisses him, bracing himself for whatever reaction he may get from it, willing to let it blow up in his face if he’s wrong about this.

wooseok kisses him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the martin luther king sunbaenim part was a COMPLETE JOKE AND I WAS BULLIED INTO KEEPING IT THERE


	3. stuck in my conscience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> honey u got a big storm comin

it’s different this time.

wooseok spills into seungyoun like wine, body going lax in his hold as seungyoun coaxes his mouth open with a tilt of his head.

seungyoun tastes so much different this time.

he feels dizzy with want, he wants to maneuver seungyoun onto his back, wants to straddle him and suck at his tongue, wants to bruise seungyoun’s lips.

wooseok can’t do anything he wants, can’t even move a limb, isn’t even sure he has limbs anymore because he feels like a shapeless puddle of euphoria in seungyoun’s arms.

“seok,” seungyoun exhales hotly against his mouth when they have to part for air, and wooseok doesn’t know how long it takes for him to blink his eyes open.

oh, god. seungyoun kissed him.

and wooseok kissed back.

did he kiss back too enthusiastically? what if seungyoun thinks he’s a bad kisser, now that he’s sober? what if he’s turned off by the way wooseok acted, made pathetically speechless just by a hand on the back of his neck?

“hey, i can tell how hard you’re thinking,” seungyoun brings him back down to earth, gently brushing against wooseok’s nose with his own, “are you okay? you can still push me away, if you want.”

the way seungyoun is so patient with him, has been _so patient_ with him during this whole ordeal wooseok brought upon them, has wooseok feeling like his chest is too small for the size of his heart trying to fit all of seungyoun, larger-than-life and too sweet for his own good.

“i-” wooseok doesn’t know where to start, doesn’t know how to explain that he’s been in love with seungyoun for months, doesn’t know how to tell him that his dream wasn’t just a dream, that he never thought, even for a second, that seungyoun would ever return his feelings.

“what... what did you do that for?”

god, he despises how raspy his voice comes out, whiny like he wants nothing more than seungyoun to kiss him again.

“did you like it?” seungyoun responds with his own question, eyes never leaving wooseok’s.

“but,” wooseok pouts, “but.. i asked you first.”

seungyoun huffs out a little laugh and wooseok wants to hit him. _no_, wants to kiss him. maybe both.

“i did it to see if, _hypothetically_, you’d like that, too,” seungyoun teases him, and wooseok can only whine and shove his face into seungyoun’s chest to hide the flush that spread from his chest to his cheeks.

“don’t play with me.”

it comes out a bit sad, thoughts running through wooseok’s mind of seungyoun only kissing him as an experiment, just doing it to tease him.

“i’m not playing with you, wooseok,” he can feel seungyoun speak, chest vibrating with his honest words, “i’ve been thinking about it. kissing you, i mean. since… since my dream.”

wooseok’s breath gets stuck in his throat, and he shoves his face further into seungyoun’s cashmere sweater when he begins playing with wooseok’s hair again, keeping silent in fear of interrupting this moment of honesty.

“i’ve thought about it before, honestly. but… never thought anything of it, ‘cause you’re..” seungyoun trails off.

_in love with you— i’m in love with you, i’m in love with you,_ wooseok wants to finish for him, wants to scream from the top of his lungs.

he doesn’t.

“you’re just... you, seokie. cute and untouchable.”

_untouchable?_ wooseok huffs, wants to remind seungyoun that he’s been practically velcroed to his side since they first met. seungyoun seems to hear his inner argument, scratches lightly at wooseok’s scalp when he speaks again.

“everyone puts you on this pedestal. you’re just.. untouchable, in the way that we all kind of see you as a whole other thing, like you’re better than all of us.”

“i am, though,” wooseok jokes weakly, squirming a bit at the unexpected explanation of how his friends all perceive him.

he knows that he can come off a bit cold and standoffish to those who only know him in passing, but he’s really not. 

seungyoun’s chest shakes with his laughter, “i know you are. _you are_, doll.”

even though it’s something he’s called wooseok before to tease him, the petname makes his brain a little fuzzy.

“don’t call me that right now.”

“are you pouting, doll?” seungyoun coos playfully, laughing off wooseok hitting his chest.

“stop it,” he whines, pulling back and pouting at seungyoun, who he can now see grinning soft and sweet at him. wooseok wants to kiss him again… and he can, technically, knowing what he does now.

oh, no. this is bad. this is very, very bad.

“i’m tired.” wooseok’s voice is barely over a whisper, doesn’t have the courage to speak any louder, doesn’t have the courage to finish this conversation in fear that he might say something he regrets.

thankfully, seungyoun doesn’t look disappointed, he’s got this little curl to the corners of his lips and his eyes are sleepy, warm as he nods at wooseok.

“we’ll talk tomorrow?” he searches wooseok’s features, sounding hopeful.

wooseok nods, curls back into seungyoun.

  


* * *

  


they don’t talk about it the next day.

seungyoun is passed out when wooseok leaves to meet with byungchan, and when he comes back to the dorm after class, he’s met with a particular sight.

his roommate, wet hair falling over his forehead and droplets dripping down onto his bare chest, sitting with yohan on the couch where they were seemingly having a conversation before wooseok came through the door.

wooseok is nervous, mostly out of fear that their talk is about _him_ because of how abruptly it ended, and partly because seungyoun... is half naked. not an uncommon occurrence, but-- it feels like the gun on his hip is taunting him.

“hi, yohan,” wooseok greets brightly, tries to keep his nerves at bay, “what are you doing here?”

“hey, wooseokie, i was just about to leave,” yohan stands up, looks at him for a moment and adds, “you look cute.”

there’s a playful roll of wooseok’s eyes, and he takes the chance to poke fun at yohan for the upteenth time since seungyoun let out his (and seungwoo, and hangyul’s) little secret. 

“gonna go get off thinking about how cute i look?” wooseok bats his eyes, lifts the hem of his hoodie a tad. 

yohan’s eye twitches.

seungyoun is cackling in the background.

“it was _one time_,” the younger boy exclaims, flailing his limbs and petulantly stomping his feet on his way towards the door, wooseok pursing his lips with a smooching noise when he passed by. 

“love you, yohanie,” wooseok calls after the sulking boy.

yohan mumbles and grumbles until he’s out the door, but wooseok thinks he hears an ‘i love you, too’ in there.

wooseok was too busy laughing to himself to notice that seungyoun had gotten up from the couch, only realizing when there are hands at his waist spinning him around to be face to… _well,_ chin, with seungyoun.

“can i help you?” wooseok keeps his voice calm despite the way his heart is lodged in his throat, beating like a hummingbird’s wings.

“you’re wearing my hoodie,” seungyoun’s sporting a shit-eating grin that wooseok wants to kiss off his lips.

he rolls his eyes instead, crossing his arms over his chest. “what, do you want it back?”

“no.”

“well, you’re not gettin- oh.” wooseok’s retort is cut short when he registers seungyoun’s answer.

“i like when you wear my clothes.”

wooseok can barely hear him over how hard he’s trying not to focus on seungyoun’s hands slipping underneath his sweater, heat flooding into him from palms resting over the small of his back.

seungyoun is still grinning, and wooseok’s mind blanks when his gaze flickers from his lips back to his eyes.

“can i kiss you?” seungyoun asks suddenly, and wooseok inhales sharply.

“no.”

seungyoun is visibly off-put by his immediate denial, lip jutting out in a pout. god, it takes everything in wooseok to not take it back, to not tell him yes and let seungyoun kiss him until he sees stars.

but he has to stay strong. he can’t just let seungyoun kiss him any time he wants, wooseok wants him to actually dig deep into his brain and think about _why_ he wants to kiss wooseok.

“why not?”

“i want you to think about it,” wooseok tells him simply.

“...think about why you’re telling me no?” seungyoun cants his head cutely, a lilt to the end of his sentence.

“_no_, i want you to think about kissing me. think about why you want it. when you have your answer, you can tell me and i’ll see about letting you. til then, you can’t kiss me.”

“i… wanna kiss you cause you’re cute?”

wooseok shakes his head. “wrong answer.”

“but.. what’s the right answer?!”

seungyoun looks so pitiful, pouting down at wooseok with his brows furrowed.

he looks ridiculous. completely, utterly stupid.

wooseok can’t stop himself from grabbing the nape of his neck to drag him down in a kiss, deepened when he gasps at seungyoun’s nails digging into his waist to bring wooseok’s body flush against his own.

now, he can feel seungyoun’s abdomen against his own where his hoodie’s ridden up, and he pulls back from the kiss before he can do something he’ll regret.

it leaves wooseok dizzy, getting to kiss seungyoun in the middle of their living room, light still filtering through the blinds, when he can pull away and _see_ the red in his cheeks and the stars in his eyes.

seungyoun is beautiful; possibly the most moronic boy in all of the universe, but... beautiful, nonetheless.

“i thought i wasn’t allowed to kiss you?” seungyoun breathes out, confused.

wooseok shrugs, innocently, “_you_ can’t kiss _me_, no. but i didn’t say anything about _me_ not kissing _you_.

seungyoun leans down, rests his forehead against wooseok’s. fingers squeeze at his waist, and wooseok just wants him to stop being so _dense_.

“you’re gonna be the death of me, kim wooseok.”

  


* * *

  


his plan works out perfectly, for the most part.

wooseok just can’t stop kissing him, is the thing. and it certainly doesn’t help that seungyoun tells wooseok every single time he wants to kiss him.

it’s even worse when he does it in the most inconvenient times, like when they’re in the cereal aisle at the grocery store, when wooseok brings their coffee back to the table the morning they go out for breakfast, when he walks out of one of his classes and seungyoun is there waiting for him.

none of those instances got to him, not really.

it’s when they’re at yohan’s apartment with the rest of their friends, when seungyoun blurts it out a little too loud, and wooseok feels multiple pairs of eyes on them.

“i wanna kiss you right now.”

“uh, seungyoun.. we’re playing uno,” hangyul laughs nervously.

wooseok’s eyes are wide in panic, staring into seungyoun’s unwavering gaze, fond and soft, as if he’s not disrupting the entire game.

“you know what, i think we _all_ wanna kiss wooseok,” seungwoo dramatically slaps down a plus four card, “but you don’t see us crying about it.”

hangyul laughs and poor yohan is busy pouting, picking up four cards as wooseok lets out a sigh of relief.

thank god seungwoo always has his back.

only.. when he looks back to seungyoun, his gaze hasn’t budged, and wooseok is about to tell him to shut up and pay attention to the damn game, when—

“you know, maybe i _do_ wanna kiss wooseok,” seungwoo reiterates, and wooseok redirects his look of _‘are you fucking crazy’_ to him instead of seungyoun.

maybe he spoke too soon.

seungwoo isn’t looking at him, though; instead, he’s staring down seungyoun next to him.

“what are you talking about?” wooseok gets out through gritted teeth, and seungwoo finally looks at him, _shrugs_.

wooseok blinks. once, twice, three times. this can’t be good. this can’t be good at all, whatever seungwoo’s planning.

“hyung, what do you mean? it was just a joke,” seungyoun sounds a little surprised, laughing through his words.

“i’m kind of serious, though.”

“hyung, will you _please_ pick a color?” wooseok is thankful for hangyul, ever on the uno agenda, trying to change the subject.

“yeah, seungwoo, pick a color,” wooseok urges, nudging at his arm with his elbow.

“would you be okay with me kissing you, wooseok?” seungwoo doesn’t take the hint, just continues on with his little game, and wooseok wants to cry. 

seungwoo is trying to make seungyoun jealous, sure, he can understand that; in front of their entire group of friends is just not the way wooseok wants to do this.

“i don’t think—” seungyoun begins, and seungwoo cuts him off.

“no offense, youn, but you have no say in this. wooseok is his own person, he can answer a question for himself.”

the pained expression on seungyoun’s features fills wooseok with dread.

“unless there’s something you’d like to say?” seungwoo continues, when seungyoun doesn’t open his mouth to speak again.

“seungwoo,” wooseok warns, “stop it, now’s not the time.” 

wooseok feels the air around him thick with tension in his spot sitting between them, sparing a glance over at hangyul and yohan who look equally as uncomfortable.

“hyung, you made uno awkward,” yohan whines.

and when seungwoo opens his mouth to speak again, wooseok grabs ahold of his upper arm and drags him up despite his protests. “we’ll be back.”

once they’re outside, wooseok yells at him, each word accompanied with a hit to seungwoo’s chest, “what is wrong with you?!”

“for someone so small, _ouch,_ you pack a big punch,” seungwoo laughs, attempting to block his hits by crossing his arms in an ‘x’ over his chest.

wooseok merely glares, nostrils flaring.

“okay, okay,” seungwoo relents, exasperation clear in his tone, “i’m sorry. i just get tired of it.”

“you don’t think _i’m_ tired of it?!” wooseok retorts, arms flailing out. 

“okay, but.. it’s been, what, two weeks since you talked to him about it? and you complain about him wanting to kiss you all of the time, but you’re too weak to tell him no. he’s never going to realize what you want until you actually tell him, wooseok.”

when wooseok opens his mouth to speak, seungwoo holds a hand up to stop him.

“i know you’re going to say you want him to figure it out on your own, ‘cause you don’t want him to feel obligated to like you back,” _and wooseok hates to admit that he’s right,_ “but he _does_ like you, he’s just fucking… stupid. either you let me make him jealous so he’ll wonder why he’s getting jealous, or you tell him you’re in love with him.”

wooseok groans, put his head in his hands. it’s so easy for seungwoo to act like it’s so black and white, like there isn’t grey filling him to the brim. “it’s not that simple.”

“it is.”

“it’s not!” wooseok exclaims, chest heavy, “i... i can’t tell him how i feel about him, i can’t tell him without him knowing the truth… he still doesn’t know that his dream about me wasn’t a dream.”

seungwoo sighs.

“wooseok…”

“no, hyung, i can’t. i can’t tell him.”

“you have to be honest with him, seok. he deserves to know.”

wooseok looks away from seungwoo, blinks away tears. he knows deep down that he’s right, that seungyoun deserves to know, that wooseok is wrong for keeping it from him.

“what if he hates me?” his voice comes out small, scared, “what if he thinks that i took advantage of him?”

“some part of him wanted it, wanted _you_. he still remembers it, that means that he wasn’t _that_ drunk, he just… couldn’t believe that it was real. you just have to break it to him.”

“he told me he wasn’t drunk,” wooseok mumbles.

seungwoo lets out a frustrated noise. “then tell him that! you _tried_ to stop him because he was drunk, and he told you he wasn’t. no blame on your part.”

at this point, wooseok is blinking away tears, avoiding seungwoo’s gaze. seungwoo only wants the best for him, he knows this, but that doesn’t change his fear of seungyoun finding out what really happened that night.

“it still makes me feel.. wrong for letting it happen. i should’ve said no, but i was selfish and i-i missed him, wanted him.”

the lump in his throat is getting increasingly difficult to speak around, and seungwoo steps closer, palms cup his cheeks to bring wooseok’s glassy gaze to meet his.

“think about it,” seungwoo implores, “in what would would cho seungyoun _ever_ hate you? or think you’d have such malicious intent when it comes to him?”

“i—” wooseok’s shaking his head, “i just..”

before he can finish, the door’s pushed open by the very source of wooseok’s internal battle, and seungyoun takes one glance between the two with a deep inhale.

by now, wooseok’s ripped himself out of seungwoo’s grasp, and he only realises after that doing so made their ordeal seem even more suspicious. “they.. sent me to fetch you, uh, sorry. i guess i’m interrupting something.”

seungyoun, loud and boisterous seungyoun, with his voice so small and hesitant and that little crease between his brows— shatters wooseok’s heart.

“you know what,” wooseok‘s voice breaks, “it’s late anyways, we should probably just go home.”

  


* * *

  


they don’t speak the entire time back to the dorm. wooseok doesn’t even know what to say, doesn’t know how to explain anything without giving everything away.

“what in the hell was that?”

seungyoun is the one to break the silence, before their front door even closes behind him. he doesn’t even sound angry, just _hurt_.

“you said nothing was going on between you and seungwoo hyung, so can you explain to me _why_ you’d be kissing him on the porch? ‘cause i’m a little confused here,” he hesitates before continuing, “i just thought… i thought we..”

wooseok turns towards him when he trails off, thinks of seungwoo’s words from earlier and bites back his automatic response of _‘i wasn’t kissing him’_.

“why? are you jealous?”

there’s a beat of silence, seungyoun running his fingers through his hair, gripping at them in his frustration.

_say yes, say yes, say yes._

“okay,” seungyoun huffs out a breath of laughter, like he can’t believe the words coming out of his own mouth, “maybe i am. i don’t want you kissing him, i don’t want him to think about kissing you, i don’t want you to be with him.”

wooseok lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding. god, he wanted that admission so badly, but he didn’t want to hear it like this. not when seungyoun is angry, when all he wants to do is kiss the worry out from his features.

wooseok’s body brings him closer to seungyoun as if on instinct, resting a palm at the nape of his neck.

“i wasn’t kissing seungwoo. i don’t want to kiss him, or be with him,” wooseok assures him, never breaking away from seungyoun’s troubled gaze, “and he doesn’t want any of that with me, either.”

most, though not all, of the tension leaves seungyoun’s body, and wooseok would do anything to calm his mind, to make him realize that the only person he wants is right in front of him. 

“then what was the point of all of that? why did he say he wanted to kiss you?”

wooseok’s teeth worry at his lesser lip, hair falling over his eyes when he shakes his head.

it’s not like he can admit that it was seungwoo’s sole intention to make him jealous, it’d only prompt more questions that he doesn’t have answers to.

“i.. i don’t know, seungyoun.”

he does, and they both know it. he just can’t, won’t, refuses to say it out loud.

it’s silent, after. wooseok can hear the beating of his own heart, and seungyoun’s features give away the millions of thoughts running through his head— the lines between his brows appearing and disappearing, gaze flitting about wooseok’s face.

“you never said it to me.”

for the second time that night, seungyoun is the one to break the silence.

only this time, wooseok’s not exactly sure of what he’s referring to. thankfully, seungyoun elaborates.

“i always tell you that i want to kiss you, and.. you never said it to me. how am i supposed to know you really do want to kiss me, and not seungwoo hyung.. or anyone else? that’s all i could think, when you were outside with him. i know you kiss me, but it’s ‘cause i tell you i want it.” 

oh, seungyoun. wooseok’s a bit taken aback, unaware that seungyoun’s been mulling over something that he’s never thought twice about.

then again, roles reversed, isn’t that what started all of this in the first place? wooseok mulling over his feelings for seungyoun, and his blissful ignorance rubbing salt in the wound.

“you’ve just never actually told me that you want to kiss me,” seungyoun mutters, voice quieter than before, like there’s somehow been a change in atmosphere, like he’s embarrassed to say it.

wooseok is so disgustingly in love with him, and he’s never been so terrified of the fact; terrified that he wants to blurt it out right then and there so that he never has to see that look on seungyoun’s face ever again.

“seungyoun...” he breathes out, a slight hitch in his breath— the tiniest of sounds— and suddenly a tremble to his words, “i can’t. you– you don’t understand.”

he can’t say it.

he can’t say that he’d never shut his mouth if he were to express wanting to kiss seungyoun every time he felt the urge.

he can’t say that there hasn’t been a single moment since they met that he _didn’t_ want to kiss seungyoun.

“why not, wooseok?” seungyoun sounds frustrated, rightfully so, “what are we doing here? what... what is this, that’s going on between us?”

wooseok panics, opens his mouth just for nothing to come out of it.

“what’s so wrong with us that you can’t even tell me that you want to kiss me?” wooseok is still thinking of what to say, still thinking of how he’s supposed to speak without everything he’s been wanting to say for months spilling out —

and then seungyoun speaks again.

“wooseok…” he seems to choose his next words carefully, sounds like he’s trying not to swallow them back down, like he doesn’t _really_ want to say them. “i get it. i know you said you liked the idea of.. my dream. so, if you just want to fuck, just tell me. because i want it, too, i want you. if that’s _all you want_, i can give it to you. just say the word.”

wooseok gapes at him.

_fuck_. is that what he’s been thinking? that wooseok has been biding his time, playing with seungyoun’s mind, hiding true intentions of just wanting him for his body?

he’s been trying so hard to get seungyoun to come to the realization that they could have feelings for each other, that friendship isn’t enough when you want so much more than _just friends_ are supposed to do.

wooseok should say that; that’s **exactly** what he should try to explain, because maybe that would make it click in seungyoun’s mind.

and yet...

instead of saying that, saying anything else, _anything_ to rectify this situation, to make seungyoun understand that he doesn’t just want sex, that he wants seungyoun for all that he is—

his pride, always the one hindrance to healthy progress in the hopeless romantic tragedy that is seungyoun and wooseok, wins.

wooseok swallows, nods, “okay.”

there’s barely a pause before seungyoun crashes into him, lips bruising against wooseok’s, fingers desperately clutching at his waist in bringing their bodies flush against one another.

it hurts a little; wooseok whimpers, skin creasing between his brows when his back collides with the wall, but seungyoun doesn’t stop.

they kiss, and kiss, _and kiss_; wooseok wonders if seungyoun is trying to memorize the feeling of their tongues’ push and pull, of wooseok’s lip between his teeth, of all the little noises he coerces out of wooseok’s throat when he gets a grip on it. (not that he’s complaining.)

he can feel himself getting hard already, from the way seungyoun is digging for gold in the expanse of his mouth and his fingers giving just the slightest bit of pressure to the sides of his neck, and it’s embarrassing, to say the least.

he shouldn’t be this easy. it should take more than just some kissing and a hand on his neck to work him up, and yet here he is— a mess.

seungyoun’s breath is hot over his jaw where he bites after pulling back from their kiss, wooseok gasping for air and grasping for coherent thoughts or _anything_ to stop him from giving in and begging for seungyoun to fuck him.

...again.

just like he did the last time. 

(here’s where his conscience decides that he doesn’t deserve a second time when seungyoun doesn’t know the truth about the first time.)

he can’t do this.

“seungyoun,” he pants, feeling trapped, more by his guilt than seungyoun caging him against the wall. “younie, wait.”

seungyoun comes back up, leaving kisses in his wake with a last, lingering one on his lips.

“yeah, baby?”

“i. that day, seungyoun… when you had the- the dream,” wooseok is stumbling over his words, seungyoun giving him an incredulous look. “..what?”

“...you sure you wanna talk about this now?”

“shut up,” he whines, shoving his face in the crook of seungyoun’s neck, “i have something to tell you.”

seungyoun sighs, strokes over wooseok’s hair, gives in to the cockblock that is the topic at hand. “okay, tell me what’s on your pretty mind. why’re you bringing up my dream again, hm?”

his breathing sped up in his slight panic over finally coming clean, telling seungyoun the truth, which wooseok didn’t consider until a little over sixty seconds before. but now, now that reality is setting in, he’s kinda freaking out.

seungyoun’s fingers pause when he picks up on wooseok’s abrupt change of attitude, and he coerces wooseok’s face from his neck with his hands on either side of his face.

“wooseokie, what’s wrong?” he’s got his brows furrowed, and he has this lost puppy look on his face that makes wooseok want to kiss away all of his worries.

he just can’t continue keeping this secret, not any more. not when it makes him feel like this.

“what if… hypothetically, your dream wasn’t a dream?”

wooseok urges himself to calm down, to relax, to breathe in and breathe out at a pace that doesn’t give away that he’s absolutely panicking and needs seungyoun to say something before he loses his _mind_.

when he does say something, it’s definitely not what he wants to hear in that moment.

“hypothetically… what would it have been, then?”

seungyoun takes a step back when he says it, and he feels a part of himself leave with the hands that slip from his face until they’re no longer touching.

“please don’t make me say it.”

“seok, i need you to tell me.”

wooseok inhales deeply.

“what if it was real?” he doesn’t even give seungyoun the chance to answer, just rambles on without pausing, “what if we actually slept together, and i feel awful about it because i feel like i haven’t been truthful with you, and because you think i ignored you for any reason other than that i just..” — wooseok’s voice cracks, and he has to clear his throat before he continues on — “i didn’t want you to hate me for taking advantage of you when i thought you weren’t drunk but apparently you _were_ because all it was.. was a blurry memory to you.”

there’s a short pause, and wooseok lets out a dry huff of laughter, devoid of any humor.

“i figured if it wasn’t even good enough for you to think it was real, i just… i didn’t wanna disappoint you by telling you that it was.”

wooseok feels small under seungyoun’s gaze, his back still against the wall and arms crossed over his chest. he doesn’t want to look at seungyoun, doesn’t want to see the range of expressions that must be crossing his features.

the silence eats at him, though, and he’s opening his mouth to speak once more despite internally cursing himself for not allowing seungyoun a moment to think without him rambling on. “if you—”

“wooseok,” he interrupts.

there’s a raspiness to seungyoun’s voice, like it’s being forced out, like he doesn’t want to speak but he has to; like he knows that wooseok doesn’t even deserve a response after what he did, but he gives one despite the fact because he’s just that good of a person.

“seungwoo knew, didn’t he?”

wooseok’s head snaps up. that’s not what he expected to hear, not at all.

“what?”

“seungwoo. he knew about your secret, didn’t he?” seungyoun’s frustration is obvious in his accusation towards wooseok, “who else knows? _yohan?_ am i the only one who didn’t know about this?”

“wh- seungyoun, no, of course not,” is what wooseok immediately insists, though he’s quick to backtrack because.. well, he’s only saying no to the latter part of seungyoun’s string of questions. “wait, i.. what i mean is that no, yohan doesn’t know. no one knew except for...”

it’s when wooseok trails off that seungyoun scoffs in disbelief, distancing himself with a few steps and averting his gaze anywhere but ahead of him.

wooseok can’t blame seungyoun for not wanting to look at him right now.

“i’ve been... having all of these feelings for you for _weeks_, thinking about why i want to kiss you so badly all of the time, about how you’re my best friend and. and... thinking about why i want you to be more than just that, and you’ve just been keeping things from me this whole time.”

“i’m sorry,” he feels the words aren’t enough, wishes there were stronger words for it, barely even noticing how his fingers are trembling at his sides, “you have every right to be mad at me right now.”

“wooseok, i’m not mad at you,” seungyoun huffs, nervous habit keeping his fingers busy with pushing his hair back off his forehead, “i mean, sure, i’m mad, but i’m not _mad at you_. i’m upset with you.”

wooseok doesn’t even deserve the right to cry, he’s been preparing himself for this admittance for months, and yet his eyes squeeze shut when they sting with tears when seungyoun isn’t even _mad_ at him. just upset.

he doesn’t deserve seungyoun, either.

and yet here he is, telling seungyoun all but the fact that he’s in love with him.

“i’m upset with the fact that you would rather fucking lie to me than tell me the truth, that you decided _yourself_ that i thought it wasn’t worth remembering,” seungyoun’s voice raises then, and wooseok doesn’t have to see him to know his lower lip is trembling by the way his voice shakes, “and then when i told you that i remembered, you just let me continue on believing it was a dream instead of coming out with the truth.”

the words alone twist his gut with guilt, and wooseok can only nod, understanding that seungyoun can only focus on the unnecessary amount of betrayal that came from wooseok’s fear of rejection.

“i thought you knew me better than to think i would ever use you like that.”

the chilly air that crept back after they parted from the warmth of each other’s bodies has goosebumps scattering all along his thighs and arms, despite them being covered by a thick sweater, and all he can think of is how seungyoun has always been the only thing that can keep him both warm and happy at the same time.

something in him aches, wondering if he’s ruined all hope of having such warmth ever again, that maybe all he deserves is as society perceives him; cold.

he regrets ever getting close enough to seungyoun for him to experience the frostbite that comes with loving wooseok.

“seungyoun…” he doesn’t even know what to say, other than apologies that he can’t imagine seungyoun wants to hear right now.

wooseok is right, of course, with seungyoun waving a hand in the air to stop him from saying whatever might come out of his mouth next.

“honestly, i don’t wanna hear it, wooseok. i have to.. i have to go talk to seungwoo.”

all wooseok wants to do is beg seungyoun to stay, but instead he remains the coward he’s always been to watch as he walks away, until the only company he’s left with is himself.

wooseok manages to pull out his phone, vision blurry, to shoot a text seungwoo’s way in hopes that it might prepare him for what’s to come.

_‘he knows.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha well that one hurted!!!! as usual next chap is in seungyoun's pov so we're about to have fun ripping into seungwoo!!
> 
> as usual pls come scream at me on twitter @lilwseok
> 
> also this is still unbetad sooooo if i made any mistakes pls lmk on my cc or something !

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first work so pls let me know what you think in the comments! it’s also unbeta’d cause idk anyone who betas lmao. pls don't yell at me for the ending JSKDLJFL i promise it's gonna get better....i wouldn't put the tag angst w happy ending if there's no happy ending!!!!
> 
> also feel free to come hmu on twitter and talk w me about it !! just be warned my acc is nsfw and 18+  
@lilwseok


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